Latest / The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast / Episode 142: Books Are Life

Transcript

Episode 142: Books Are Life · The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is the Mookse and the Gripes podcast.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, everybody.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is Trevor Evermore.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Paul.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Paul, how are you doing?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: I am doing great.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: I am enjoying.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: Finally, we got a little bit of autumn going over here in Colorado.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's been extended summer,
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: but the last couple of days,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: it's been rainy and cold and all those things that you'd hope for October.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, I'm finally getting into the spirit.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: How about you?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a stormy past week.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Today is a sunny day outside and yesterday was nice too,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: but over the weekend, I mean,
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: we had like that tropical storm from California,
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: like somehow filtered up through the mountain front and dropped a lot of rain
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: and dropped our temperatures down to where I was like,
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: okay, we can't go from 80 to 40.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's stupid.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: The best time of year is when it's in its, you know, 60s.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'll even go with upper 50s and lower 60s.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's a beautiful time of year for me, fall and spring.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we can't just skip it.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's short enough as it is.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: It looks like we might get it.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: The high today is 70, so I'm like, it's not at least 80, but still.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like that's kind of the new normal, unfortunately, is just skipping entire seasons.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: And the ones that get skipped tend to be my favorite ones, but I'm hoping.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we'll get some of it this year.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we're recording this a little bit early.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's Friday,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: October 16th because Paul has stuff going on that makes
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: so we can't record next week.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's great.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, today's high is 70.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Tomorrow, Saturday, 71.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Then we have 69, 68, 63, 70, 65.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's in the 50s.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: So we might have four days of the next 10 that are my ideal days.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, I mean, can't beat that.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're a little bit warmer than that, unfortunately.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, actually, I'll be in Las Vegas, so probably a lot warmer.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: You'll be a lot warmer.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, swing on up.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're not too far away from Vegas.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's true.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Are we like four or five hours?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I'll just skip the conference and come see you.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: That'd be great.
• 2:34
  Yeah.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we are glad to be back.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And...
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Back for good.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: We're back to our normal shenanigans.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's a Friday morning doing our recording.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: We do Fridays or Saturdays.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, we're recording it a little bit early, but we do that sometimes.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just going to start this episode out the old fashioned way, Paul.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: What have you been reading?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: I like it.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've been in the middle of several really good ones.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've talked about a couple of them on previous episodes.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm still making my way through Fortunate Man and still loving that one.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think I mentioned this one last episode.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not 100% sure,
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: but with the bookstore book club,
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: we are reading Aside From My Heart All Is Well by Hector Abad,
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think I mentioned that one last time, but that one I'm really enjoying too.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you mentioned it, but you put it on my Instagram.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's what it was.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: I saw it there.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that's a really good one.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, in that case,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: maybe I'll just give for those who aren't familiar,
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'll just read a really quick bit from the front flap.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: Luis Cordoba leads an unconventional life.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: His vocation as a priest has not stopped him from becoming a film critic,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: teacher and opera enthusiast.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: He lives in his childhood home in downtown Medellin with his fellow priest,
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Aurelio Sanchez, among an array of pets, a warmongering fish, a toucan.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: It is Aurelio who details Luis's life,
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: writing across time to a day in 1996 when his friend's life changed.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it gets into exactly what that means.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to spoil too much,
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: but there's a lot,
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: especially in the first part of it,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: about the idea of hearts,
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: both literal and kind of more metaphorical that is really good.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I'm going to be curious to hear what the group thinks of that one as we...
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Discuss it here later this month,
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: but then one other one that has been getting a lot of buzz and
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: so I finally have been listening to the audiobook is,
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think you've read this one yet Trevor,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: but it's Gaining Ground by Joan Barfoot.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you've read that one.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: I have a copy now that it's getting out and about.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: I just thought it's been a while since I've read,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: not that it's necessarily a buzzy book,
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: but I think it's very much in the zeitgeist right now.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I saw that one pop up at the library.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'll just read a little excerpt from it to give people.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's really beautiful.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: And this is not right at the beginning, but pretty close.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: And this is the narrator.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: Basically, the idea is this woman were kind of dropped in without knowing too much about her.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: But we quickly learned that despite having a seemingly perfect life,
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: she made the decision to kind of just step away from it all.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I can only assume that as we move along through the book,
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: we'll learn a little bit maybe about why that happened.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: But when you first start out the book, you don't really know anything.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: But so she stepped away from this life.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: And this is kind of her describing where she went.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: It says, the first time I saw this place, I knew I'd come home.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: I do not mean I knew it in a peaceful,
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: comforting sort of way, the way one recognizes an old friend.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: That first time,
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: it was like an electric shock,
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: sharp and abrupt, strange and terribly painful, and it changed everything.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: With it, the life I had disintegrated.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: From this first moment, this was my home.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: How can that be understood?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: But after that initial shock of recognition,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: after the first changes and the settling in,
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: the shiftings in me came more slowly, took their time in rooting.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: I cannot say that I lost right away the sense of distinguishing myself from what was around me.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: I heard the birds,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: looked at the flowers,
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: but always I was separate from them, someone listening and looking.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: I do not know when the distinction disappeared,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: but it must not have been for a very long time,
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: not until I became a part of it, which is a different thing from feeling at home.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was spring then,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: which was a blessing,
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: because if I had arrived later toward autumn,
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: I most surely would not have been ready for winter.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: Odd, I see that remembering has separated me from it,
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: that looking back at myself as an object of my memory has made everything I saw then
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: an object as well, so that I've lost the unity.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: It is part of my confusion now, my disorientation.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: At this moment,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: I don't belong,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: although the knowledge that I'm home has not changed." So,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: you know, that gives you an idea of kind of, it's really beautiful writing.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of her dealing with,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: like we're dealing with it along with her,
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: but there's definitely some disorientation like she references at the beginning.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: She gets an unexpected visitor that kind of like shakes her out of this kind of,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it's a stupor that she's been in,
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: but kind of this very narrow life that she's moved into.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I don't know.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's a little bit of mystery, but very literary and beautiful so far and very internal.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm intrigued by it.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm probably maybe, like I said, I've been listening to it.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm probably like, 15-20% into the book and starting to get a few clues of what's happening.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it's really good so far.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that sounds good.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to get to it.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really know who she was.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't either.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Until maybe it's a month or two ago, it seemed like people were reading him.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think Nora was posting a little bit about her.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I like that.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think Nora was, her posts were the ones that kind of prompted me.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: I've been seeing it and hearing about it a little bit.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, we trust Nora with our lives.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: So as soon as I saw that she was talking about it, I was like, oh, got to give it a try.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, how about you?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: What have you been reading?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: I have started the October book for Muriel Sparks read-along where we're reading all
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: of her books in chronological order.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: So this is book 10 of the 22 that we'll be reading.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: We're almost halfway through and November's book will be halfway through.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: This one's a reread for me.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's The Driver's Seat.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Have you read The Driver's Seat, Paul?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's one of a couple of hers that I have read.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: What a wild ride.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, this is a wild one.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: It begins that way.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'd forgotten how this begins.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: A woman named Lisa or Lisa is in a clothing store looking for the dress
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: that she wants to wear, has to be a certain type of dress and all that.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: And she freaks out at the sales girl who says that it's stain resistant.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Just freakish.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Flips out, tearing it off of her body.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, I don't want this.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want this.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the sales girl's like, what is going on?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Ma'am, please stop doing that to our clothes.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: she storms out and goes to another place and asks them,
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know, is this stain resistant and all this?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, what?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Who is this weird person?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we learned that she is going on vacation.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: She has been...
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: I guess stressed out at work.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was almost suggested to her.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think in a bad way, but just like, hey, you should get out.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so she's going away to Greece.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's Greece anyway.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: I could be wrong on that.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is me just starting it again, but remembering it as well.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you start realizing that something terrible is going to happen to her there
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: because as Spark is often doing in her book,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: she's Telling you the future in little asides like, you know, Lisa is thin.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Her height is about five foot six.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: Her hair is pale brown,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: probably tinted,
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: a very light streaked lock sweeping from the middle of her hairline to the top
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: of her crown.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Her hair is cut short at the sides and back and is styled high.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: She might be as young as 29 or as old as 36, but hardly younger, hardly older.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: She has arrived at the airport.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: She has paid the taxi driver quickly and with an expression of abstract eagerness
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: to be somewhere else.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Likewise with the porter,
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: while he takes her bag and follows her to the desk to have it weighed in,
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: she seems not to see him.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is the start of chapter two.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then we go on.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: There are two people in front of her.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's the start of a new paragraph.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: And in this same paragraph, this is not, it's just such an interesting thing to me.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: There are two people in front of her.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Lisa's eyes are widely spaced.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Back to that.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Blue, gray and dull.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Her lips are a straight line.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: She is neither good looking nor bad looking.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Her nose is short and wider than it will look in the likeness constructed partly by
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: the method of identikit,
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: partly by actual photography soon to be published in the newspapers
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: of four languages.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Lisa looks at the two people in front of her, blah, blah, blah.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, did I just read that right?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: What is happening here?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: How is this likeness being constructed?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Identicate does not sound, you know, isn't that what they use for criminals or for victims?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then published in the newspapers of four languages.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, this is a bizarre book and bizarre in the way that it's put together.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: In a lovely, fun, surprising way.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm excited to get fully into it.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: I've just read basically up to that, chapter one and then a little bit into chapter two.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, this has, again, been such a great project that I love it.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if you had a chance to read it, Paul,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: because I know you've been busy,
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: but the Novella Book Club, I did just finish Catherine Mansfield's Prelude.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I loved, loved reading that.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been a fun discussion on the Discord there.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think a lot of people have jumped on it.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Some are coming a little bit later, I think, and finishing it up.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it is absolutely worth the reading.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: It is so good.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm about two thirds of the way through.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't had as much time.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: I feel bad this time.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't been quite as active as I've Been on,
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: some of our previous novella read alongs,
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: just not to keep talking about it,
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: but just because of the way things have been going.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, no, I mean,
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: the two thirds of it that I've read so far,
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: it's such a it's a weird book,
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: too, but not in the same way, but it's very fragmented.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: And these little glimpses of different characters lives, but man, very beautifully done.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm kind of hoping to get to it and finish it this weekend if I can,
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: because I'll be curious to see where it goes or if it goes anywhere.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: You never know with books like that.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's lovely.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I do know she wrote a few years later At the Bay where she goes back
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: to these same characters.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like,
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: do I read At the Bay really quick and then kind of get a mix up in my brain maybe?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Or do I let Prelude be its own thing for a while?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And enough people have convinced me.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, read at the Bay.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And there have been a lot of people who are like, I love at the Bay.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know there was a, you know, quote unquote, a prequel, basically.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so there are a lot of people who are discovering Prelude is,
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: you know, almost a prequel to one of their favorite stories.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not a prequel.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't come out after.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Don't prequels have to come out after the original thing to be a prequel?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I always think of
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: them as.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's a sequel to become a prequel.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, we're doing this afterwards, but it's before.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's not how this one is.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: She wrote Prelude and then wrote At the Bay.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: But at any rate, yeah, I'm excited to read At the Bay.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's a little shorter.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I was going to ask you.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: Is it?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: Closer to a short story than a novella.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I guess that's always arbitrary to some degree.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: In my edition, I think Prelude is like 80 pages and it looks like At the Bay is like 60.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's one of those Pushkin, you know, little size.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you get through them pretty quick.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: it looks like it's, I mean,
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: it might be more of a short story length, but that can give you kind of an idea.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, nice.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I might have to do the same thing because I've really been,
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: the more I think about it, I don't know that I've ever read anything by her.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's possible I read a short story or something at one point,
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: but it's been really nice to kind of get a little introduction into her.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, she's one of those you hear the name a lot,
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: but I don't know that she gets quite the credit that she seemingly deserves.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, do you want to hear my thoughts for 2027?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Live with everybody.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, usually I do say, hey, Paul, what do you think about this, that or the other?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm just going to jump into it and see what you think.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: You can still tell me no.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: But this is kind of where I've been leaning.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: There is a book by
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Mariyama Ba called So Long a Letter that I thought we could do
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: the first part of the year.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's Yasushi Inouye's The Hunting Gun, which I thought could be for April.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then for the summer, a George Eliot novella that I have not read, The Lifted Veil.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently it's Victorian Gothic and I'm like, can't even imagine.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: There's people who know who have read it out there who can maybe give us some thoughts on that.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I thought I've read all of her novels.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I want to read more of the other things that are a little ancillary.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then to end the year, Machado Giasis' The Alienist.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'm not telling you anything about any of them.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's more vibes.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's vibes.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, but I will say, yeah, I don't know.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: If I am familiar with any of them besides the George Eliot, I am not aware of it.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm perfectly okay with that.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of like that idea.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe it'll turn out that if I do a little research and digging, it'll spark something.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't think I know much, if anything, about any of those, which kind of sounds appealing.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I thought it's pretty wide ranging again,
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: trying to set it up so that it's like world literature, not just and no recent.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the most recent is So Long a Letter from 1979.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then The Hunting Gun is 1949.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: The other two are from, you know, the 1800s.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, it's kind of all over the place.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think that's been kind of our modus operandi for this is like just kind
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: of scattershot.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it's been fun.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of like that.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's nice for variety's sake,
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: but it's also kind of gives you an idea of all the various things
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: that short fiction can do and has done.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know,
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: not like a linear evolution,
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: but just getting glimpses into all the different ways that it has changed over time
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: and place.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually think,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure, So Long a Letter is epistolary, meaning, you know, it's with letters.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I also think The Hunting Gun might be as well.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: At least I know there are letters involved in it.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think the other two are,
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: but I was tempted to go full in and be like Stefan Zweig's letter from
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: an unknown woman or,
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know, but I was like, no, I don't want to be quite that thematic.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Let's Let's not do that.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: But those are the ones I'm thinking of.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, feedback or thoughts from anybody and you, especially Paul.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: These are just me as I finished Prelude trying to think ahead and say, well,
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: I do think we want to finalize it relatively soon so that people can prepare
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: for January.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: Always crazy how quickly when you're planning, it's like, no, we have plenty of time.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then all of a sudden it's like, wait.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: I guess we know.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm already planning for the end of my life.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's rough.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's rough.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we are here today to talk about something that is a bit strange and
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: a bit amorphous has been for us,
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: but hopefully we'll be able to dig under because I think both of us,
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: as we've talked about this idea,
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: have realized it could just be a repeat of things we've talked about in the past.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, certainly it touches on things we've talked about in the past.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: But we do feel like there is a layer up to it that is different and worth exploring.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it started because,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: a few weeks ago,
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: I saw online the final scene of the movie from the 80s,
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know, Robin Williams and Ethan Hawke, Dead Poets Society.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I loved that movie when I was a kid.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was fantastic.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, what does that say about me?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was very young when that came out.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know if I was 10 yet.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I loved the movie.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I believed in what it said about art.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: I felt that hunger and that kind of awakening.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: To life in the possibilities of like poetry as it's presented to them.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I've tried to not consciously like follow it,
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: but I have kind of always thought, you know, there are practicalities in life.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: They should not take over for life.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they should be there to assist my life, not become my life.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: like I think that movie is super problematic,
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: too, as I've grown up and thought more about it.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: The charismatic teacher, this versus the practicality.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Man, it could probably lead plenty of people astray.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Always skeptical of charismatic teachers who seem to be throwing out the curriculum
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: in favor of their own ideas and maybe even their own personality a little bit.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, I love it.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I still love that final scene.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: But there is the scene toward the middle.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking to these young, impressionable children.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he says something along the lines of, you know,
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Life is talking about life,
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: and he says that we will be, you know, life itself is love and poetry.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, these are the things we live for.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: All these other things are necessary to sustain life,
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: but love, poetry, that is what life is made of.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, do I believe that about poetry, about literature, that that is life?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you and I devote an absurd amount of time and resources,
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: absurd to some people,
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: to pursuing reading and literature and books in general.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: We plan vacations and figure out where the bookstores are and what to take with us.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I know there are many people who are just like that.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: Is it because to us it is life?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And what does that mean?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked about why do we read in the past in a fun episode with Ben O'Connell.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about how reading enriches life.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: But there's something to be said about is it life and what the heck does that even mean?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to kind of explore that.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think, Paul?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've been thinking about it a lot.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: And like you said, I've been trying not to turn it into just why do we read?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like you said, I mean, that's the easy way to do.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think that that will come up.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I was thinking about it like you described.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: One of the ways I was thinking about it was like you said at
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: an early age you were 10 or whatever and hearing that and it already made
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: an impression on you.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like we've talked about how formative a lot of books and reading
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: in general has been to me.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I remember from my mom says from like time I was
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: a toddler like I would crawl up to her with a book, you know, not a toy, but a book.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I think part of what I was thinking about as we were discussing this is like kind
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: of a nature versus nurture and is the reason that we spend so much time and
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: that it has become such a part of our life ingrained in us?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: Or is it something that kind of has developed over time?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't know what the answer is to that,
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: but I think to your point,
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: it's You mentioned,
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was in an episode that we,
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: when we were kind of hinting or picking at this idea,
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: you mentioned the idea of like,
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: if you sat in a room full of books all day and didn't do anything else,
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: would that be a complete life?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for the most part, it's likely not.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: there might be like monks or scholars where they could make a perfectly good life
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: that way.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: But I think for you and I, it's more complicated than that.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: But I think, I don't know.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: It I think for me,
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: what I was thinking about is like the hours that I spend reading aren't really,
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't feel like they're taking away from the real business of living.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't think you said, you know, jobs and things like that are kind of a necessary thing.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of how I feel about it.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think for me.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: The hours in which I am reading and thinking about literature and talking
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: about literature are one of the key parts that makes life worth living.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: So that's,
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: as you can tell,
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of this conversation will probably be like that of me figuring out on the fly,
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: but I think to me,
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: It adds color and texture to a life that like, yes, I could otherwise live my life.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: And there are many things,
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: family being the main one that would make it still a very wonderful life.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: But I think for me without the reason that I keep turning back to it is
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: because it adds something that otherwise my life would not have.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: So in that, in that sense, I do think it does make up a life.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, So I don't know.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like I said, I don't know how clear that was.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: But that's my initial thoughts is I don't think it's taking away from life.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's kind of maybe one of the primary ways that we've come
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: to experience life, if that makes sense.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: And not just through other people's lives,
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: but even just like you've talked
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: about just sitting there reading is how I experience my life.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it has become,
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: and I think my reading of Proust last year has very much affected my thoughts
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: on this and what I think about all this,
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: because he does talk about how art becomes integrated into you,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: into who you are, how you see things, and it's somewhat inseparable from that.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's not supplementary.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's not its own thing.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: It is you.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: And your life feeds back into that.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of a fun little idea of a circulation system of blood,
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: speaking of life,
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: that the literature,
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: the reading itself can We can kind of start this cycle with us or be part of a cycle
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: with us of feeding life and being fed from life to where it's integrated
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: into almost one and the same thing.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I've always believed in the idea
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: that literature is not some extracurricular activity to life.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: You can certainly be in a profession that has nothing or seemingly nothing to do with it.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: And still yearn for a need and have a life that has room for hours spent reading
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: a novel, all of that, because it is life.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: And just like I could be afraid that if I spent too much time in my profession away
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: from family, I don't like to spend too much time away from books.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: No, I really like what you said about kind of the idea of circulatory system,
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: or I guess another way to think of it would be like sustenance, food, water.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think we've hinted in the past of the idea of like reading as meditation or prayer
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: or,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: for different people,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: it might represent different things,
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: but I think sustenance and maybe like a centering or a A ritual or a part
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: of your life that just, we've talked about it.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, when I have to go for whatever reason,
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: a stretch of time without it being part of my daily routine, it has an impact on me.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: It does really take the color out of my life.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think I really like that idea of the circulatory system and kind
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: of reinvigorating and providing like vigor to your life,
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think is a great way to talk about it.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Have you had any books that you've kind of maybe felt this more about than others?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, again, Proust, I think it's hard to say that that's not, that was not life.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: reading that many pages of that sustained attention to
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: a life absolutely affected me looking around with my life,
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: but more than that, more than that.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't some like utilitarian, like reading that Made me more empathetic or more aware.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: It did.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: It did.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: But it also, like you said, it was my experience.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was bored with that book.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: I walked with that book.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: I got excited by that book.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was frustrated with that book.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: I spent nights thinking about that book.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: And to where again, that is a big part of my 2025.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my life.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: No, I mean, I think there's several approaches to that.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think one of the things that like I've,
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: I talk about Robert McFarlane all the time,
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: but spending time with his books,
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: like has,
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: it has rewired my brain to the point where I feel like he's always with me.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: And like,
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: as I'm going on a walk or a hike or sitting in my backyard,
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: watching the birds,
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: like it has kind of like It reshapes me to the point where
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: feel like even
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: when I'm not reading that book, it is part of me.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: And that's tricky because I think one of our points about this is not the whole idea
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: of reading as a tool.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because so much of the conversation around reading and why you want to read in a life is...
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because it translates into XYZ type of output.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: And clearly for us, that is not what we are doing this for.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think there are many people out there who spend a lot of money on books and a lot
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: of time reading books that they could be using to quote unquote better themselves
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: or make more money.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't think it's that,
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: but I just think when I think of those books as I was reading them,
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: I was living with them,
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: but then like even when I'm done reading them, they have stuck with me.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think, yeah, my views of the world and nature have been completely reshaped by that.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like they're just always with me now.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if it's exactly the same conversation,
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: but like as we're reading Fortunate Man right now,
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: or like when I read something like David Copperfield,
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: they're more traditional,
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: straightforward,
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: like Buildings Roman,
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: like But I think there's something about reading those those big books
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: where you are immersed in somebody else's life that it just it has a strange impact
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: on you where you're more conscious of everything going on in your life and it kind
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: of all blends together.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like not that you think you're that person,
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: but it just it turns into this weird like reflexive moment of like compare contrast
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: that it's not always even conscious,
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: but it's just when you're reading a book over the course of a month or a year.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: It integrates itself into you in a way that it's hard to explain.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think part of the reason I have trouble talking about this is because it does seem
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: a little magical to me.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a bit tricky.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe to return to the quote unquote inspiration for this episode,
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: to the extent that it was,
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: in Dead Poets Society,
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: you may remember there's the part where he has them read,
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: almost like a scientific,
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: you know, paper about how to analyze a poem, how to graph it on there.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, it's so dead and intellectual.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like he's trying to tell them, hey,
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: this is a bit silly because it completely leaves out why people care
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: about literature in the first place.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: At the same time, I do believe that literature deserves knowledge.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Not maybe that type of thinking about it,
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: but beyond just, ooh, I read that, move on to the next one.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, I read that, move on to the next one.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about these books.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: We do analyze these books.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: We do try to dissect them because, again, they deserve it.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: It is that kind of back and forth, too, of...
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: I value these so much that they become part of my experience and I do want
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: to understand to an extent why while at the same time leaving plenty of room
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: for what you're talking about with them being magical.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: They can't get to the full bottom of it.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: We have had moments, I think, where we're like, oh, what we're saying now is it.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of where we're going.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then it slips away.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's so strange.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: It has been very strange preparing for this episode.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because again, it feels a little bit ephemeral.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think there are building blocks and steps to it that we're figuring out.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: No, I think it's also a very reflective exercise.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think, I wonder if the answer would be different at different stages of our life.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how does reading make up a life?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, we've talked about kind of how having a passion like this.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, realistically, there are so many books and there's so much knowledge out there.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think part of What I find from reading that is so intriguing and kind
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: of why I can't stop doing it is just, it's a never ending, I don't know, cornucopia.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that's too corny,
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: but like, it's this idea of like, to me, the
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: word has it in it.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, part of what it does is like, it just gives you optimism and excitement.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, For the individual book you're reading,
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: for the sentence you're reading,
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: but also stretching out ahead of you is just this ephemeral,
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: there's knowledge,
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: there's curiosity,
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: there's magic,
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: there's all these things, but literal books, you could never finish them.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I think about that as I get older.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: What keeps you going?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: When you're young,
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: it seems like you have forever and you can read every book in the world
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: and it's all stretching out before you.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: As we get older,
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: why do we keep going back To this thing that,
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: hasn't really, again,
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: like it's not like there's a direct output that we see on paper about like,
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: you know, this has provided XYZ for us.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: But so it's kind of this weird,
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: like what keeps us going back there,
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: even as we realize we're never going to get to all these books,
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: we're never going to be able to like figure out what the answer is
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: to this big question.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very, I think it changes over time.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: The way that I think about this, but I don't know.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: The funny thing to me, though,
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: is like thinking about that little kid who was bringing my parents books at the age
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: of two, like I still feel that same excitement.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's one of the things that I appreciate so much
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: about our conversations and the books that we read and the communities
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: that we're part of.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: And what keeps me coming back to this is like,
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know that there's anything else in my life that provides this kind of like,
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, like spark.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't necessarily lead to knowledge or us being better people
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: or better any aspect of our lives.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, sometimes it does the opposite.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so there is just that intriguing thing that it almost feels like life.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like lived experiences.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess what I mean by this is that...
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: With Proust, you can read about jealousy.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that you're suddenly an expert on jealousy
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: or can escape its clutches in your own life or anything like that.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like you have just experienced it again for yourself.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of Muriel Spark, the weird bits of...
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Cruelty or biting humor or all of that.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't necessarily lead me to more elucidation about life.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: It can sometimes confound it.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: And Anita Bruckner, I've been thinking a lot about her.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is the sense of loneliness.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, these things don't necessarily solve anything and they really do become part
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: of my lived experience.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: As I've kind of said already with Proust, I feel like those were genuinely parts of my life.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we've talked about how you can go to a concert or go to a play
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: and experience art in that way or go travel somewhere somewhere.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: And experience the world in that way.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: You are traveling and it is you.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: I am bound,
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: as again,
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: learning from Proust,
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: I am bound by this body and this mind and its perspective on things and it moves
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: about in the world.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: And encounters people, places, things.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that is what makes my life.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: And books and reading are that.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: And again,
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: as I've said,
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: it kind of goes back and forth a little bit
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: with both feeding what I would say is my real interactions with real living people.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: But it is very real to also have these interactions with people.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Someone who's been dead for 150 years, who still is talking about something like that.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, not to get back...
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_02: This might border into the why we read thing, but you're a big film person.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: You love movies and films.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: Do you feel like there's a similar experience that you've been able to garner from
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: that form of art?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because for me, I think it is similar.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: But I would still argue, at least for me, that it's still...
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: There is something about reading that is even more immersive,
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: but I would be curious to hear your thoughts on how those compare because you spend
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of time also watching and discussing films,
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: maybe not to the same extent as literature, I don't know.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: But is there a difference between those?
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you bring that up because yeah,
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: you ought to like,
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: and I guess in some ways,
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't thought about this,
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: but We've talked about too with horror books versus horror movies.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Books don't scare me.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't necessarily experience fear when I'm reading a book as much as fear is
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: a part of life.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: I can experience anxiety.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: I can definitely get to where I'm deeply uncomfortable with
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: the character's situation or what they're going through.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: But fear I don't necessarily experience.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I can experience that with a movie.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, I think it is related.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: I also value film in this way or television series or whatnot.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, there might be degrees or hierarchies.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, books do different things.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: There are books that are entertainment and that's valuable.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I was entertained.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they don't quite become embedded as life as I'm making out a lot of these other things.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I guess that's where I've tried to,
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: as I've been thinking about this,
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: not simply say, you know, poetry is life or literature is life, but reading.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Reading is life.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: Another thing that I was thinking about with just not only individually,
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: our lives,
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: reading has become a huge part of our lives and we've tried to explain a little bit
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: of why,
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: but something else I was thinking about is not only internally do we do this,
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: but like you and I,
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: you for a lot longer than I have,
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: at least publicly with your blog and then with the podcast and with other things
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: that we do,
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: book clubs,
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: this has also turned into something that I don't know if evangelize,
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: that might be a little strong,
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: but the idea of this is so important to us that we not only spend our time reading,
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: but we spend a lot of our extra time doing other things to either share it
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: with communities, engage with other communities, that kind of thing.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess that's another interesting aspect to this whole idea of for such a
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: An internal personal thing that has shaped both of our lives.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: There's also that aspect of like,
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: not only do we spend all that time by ourselves doing it,
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: but then we also have taken that extra step.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so I don't know, I just think that's interesting too.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like for a lot of people out there, like, yes,
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: there are the influencers and things who probably just maybe do it for likes,
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: but I genuinely feel like for many people who are readers,
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: there is just this Passion and need to just share it and talk about it
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: and get it out there and I think that's another interesting aspect
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: of this whole reading as a life thing.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think evangelize is kind of a good word for it.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: There is that sense of having the good news.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Reading, you know, reading this was a powerful experience.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Reading this has affected me in this way or that way.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: Or I just really had a blast reading this and I want other people to have
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: that same experience in life.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think this is a good thing for life.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I still feel though,
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: and this is,
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I know how to articulate reading as life
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: in any way
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: that doesn't make it sound still supportive of life,
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: that doesn't make it sound still enriching of life.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess that's because if I really dig down and think about it, It isn't food.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm not going to die if I stop reading.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to be...
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: There are parts of my life that I would give up reading to save them.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: Things like family and relationships.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: you said, we can't go live in a cave and read because that's what life is.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, that is not life.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: That is not a life well lived, in my opinion.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, it certainly would not be.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: If I put it on a hierarchy,
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: then yeah,
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: family and friends and even the things I have to do in order to sustain life
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: with food and shelter, those companies.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: And reading is a little bit after that.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I get that.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's why I struggle with this particular aspect of making the point
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: that reading is life.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I am blessed to be to the point where I can have some of that stability
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: in those fundamental aspects.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, the reading is life.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was about to say something again and I watched it.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: I watched it floating away from my fingers.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: But because it is not, again, life, life, life.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: But here's maybe my point.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: If I didn't read, my life would be duller.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean dull as in boring.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean almost like color.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: Picture a film, grainy, dull colors on an old black and white TV that's meant to be.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: Watch Lawrence of Arabia in our kitchens when we were in the 80s, Paul, on your antenna TV.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's black and white.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: It does not get good reception.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: You're still watching Lawrence of Arabia.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: But it's dull.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that full experience.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I realize that I'm venturing into the territory of saying that reading enriches life.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I still want to say yes, but that's the point of watching Lawrence of Arabia.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's not to just get the information from Lawrence of Arabia to say, oh, I know that scene.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: I know what they said.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: Lawrence of Arabia is the rich vista.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: Lawrence of Arabia is the scope.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: It is the big screen and the saturated color.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's Lawrence of Arabia.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: And my life is that too.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where reading becomes life.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: That is what I'm talking about when I talk about life.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: Not just sustaining it, not just maintaining it, but making it That's what I want it to be.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: Again, not with clarity,
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: not with perfect answers to questions,
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: but honestly, with uncertainty, with problems, with all of that.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of what I mean.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: Did I maybe say something there that was like, okay,
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: yeah, still could use some work, Trevor, but you maybe got a little bit closer.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: No, this is our live workshopping episode for sure.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it's part of it's just because I think there is a little bit of it is like
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: a philosophical thing that I don't know that there's ever a way to put it perfectly.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: But no, I agree with you.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's a little clunkier,
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: but I was thinking of even something as simple as,
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: you know, The Wizard of Oz, where it's like, for a while, it's black and white.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then all of a sudden, it's like the exact same scene.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: But it's just like, wow, that looks completely different.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: I do feel like that.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_02: And You know,
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: this is where I don't want it to sound like it's the only way because this is
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: where my evangelizing makes me start to sound like maybe I am.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I am a reading fundamentalist.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: But the idea of like you hear a lot about people who are always searching
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: for something like they on the surface, they have this complete life.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, even like that.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: The Barfoot book that I was just talking about,
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_02: like somebody who on the surface, they have everything.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: And there are so many people out there who you hear them say,
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: like, they just feel like they're missing like that extra spark or color in life.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I really do think like for me,
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: if I was,
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: if I was just kind of basing things on like my career and money or things like that,
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: I,
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: I guess that that is a life,
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_02: but like,
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think definitely for me without The extra passion and curiosity and depth
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: that reading brings, I just feel like it would be a very incomplete life.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess that's making me wonder, people have hobbies.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: There are people who have all kinds of hobbies that do enrich their lives.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I wonder if there's any other parts of life like this that would really...
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder if people could argue that whatever,
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: Long distance running or something like that provides anything like this?
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: Or is it just because we're partial to reading that it feels like this for us?
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: Or is there something truly transformative?
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think I could argue,
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: speaking from a very prejudiced point of view,
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: I still think that there is something more than just a hobby to this.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think it is deeper than that for sure.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: I just would be curious.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder if the argument could be made that like,
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: Knitting or long distance running or whatever the case may be provides this
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: for people.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to say I think it can.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: But you have to be a poet at heart, right?
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: For those things to do quite the same thing.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's all words or images.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's about accessing certain bits of experience.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: Experience or contemplation.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're reading Prelude.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: I finished it.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're still there.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of Prelude is built up of this idea that here are these various people
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: who are moving home and all of
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: the different experiences taking place inside their heads
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: that nobody else really sees.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: But they're deep.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: They're very significant realizations about who they are and the life they're living.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: That you can't see on the outside,
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: but we have access to their thoughts and insights about them
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: that maybe they don't even have themselves.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you've got the lovely Aunt Beryl.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: I feel so bad for her, who is always performing, even for just herself.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: When she goes to bed at night and is getting ready, she's by herself, completely alone.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: And...
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: Still talking to herself about how tired she is.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the narrator says she wasn't really as tired as she was making it out to be.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: So she's performing for herself.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's just something about that inside life.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think that people who are engaged in other pursuits that have meaning
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: for them are able to find things.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I do feel like often people who are able to articulate that or at least go
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: through that,
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: it's because they engage with that on that kind of level
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: that it provides substantial meaning to their life.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they can't
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: articulate it.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't necessarily mean they're poets and therefore they can turn around.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: There are people like that who can turn around I love reading.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: Again, this is now reducing it to reading.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: I love reading people who are really good at something,
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: but also have a poetic sensibility and can express it in that way.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: But again, that's turning it into literature.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: I still think that people can have that with life.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I also agree with you.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: But again, that might just be our purpose.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm more arguing for the other side because I don't want anybody to be listening
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: to this with their spouse who does not read and think, you have a dull life.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: Not dull isn't boring.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: You definitely get out there, but it's just lax luster because I don't feel that way.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need to follow this example to live the best life.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: I would not think I can give that to people.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_02: But maybe one of the things like as you were talking,
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if this is going to clear it up at all,
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: but like the idea of maybe what makes it life instead of a hobby or part of life is
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_02: for me, it's not just something to pass the time.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like a lot of hobbies, I think it is kind of something to fill those hours.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like while I'm sitting here,
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: I might as well do X, Y, Z, like a crossword puzzle or, you know, whatever.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think maybe that is one of the things that like this isn't just us.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think some people truly do just flip through a Us magazine at the airport to kind
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: of kill time.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not anything that they really are passionate about.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_02: They could be doing anything else, but it's like, well, this will kill an hour.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think some people do read that way.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: And clearly what we're talking about is a whole different story.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_02: Filling an hour, not killing an hour.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's not the idea of like,
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: often you wish the time would go slower because you don't want
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_02: to give up this precious thing that you're doing.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know,
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_02: maybe that's a little bit of it too,
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_02: is just this idea of like, it's not making life pass or like killing time.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: It is like truly something that is creating time or creating life as you're doing it.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I had it.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: Slipped away again.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: Reading as creating life.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've said that in our Marco Polos back and forth to each other.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: We have said that.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: Weird how we're getting to it now.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it is such a weird topic.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: We clearly need to have this conversation,
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: go back to the drawing board so we can maybe crystallize a thing or two,
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: but then maybe we would lose a thing or two as well.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, yeah, creating.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just think that I was very affected by this stuff as a little kid,
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: watching Dead Poets Society and other things too.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: I loved watching movies when I was younger and it wasn't just for entertainment's sake.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: They affected who I wanted to become and how I wanted to be.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so I absorbed this romantic notion of life
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: from something like Dead Poets Society and That somehow,
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: poetry and literature and reading in general were essential to a fully lived life.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I've lived my life accordingly.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have to believe it, right?
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's the other problem here.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of evangelizing, look,
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: if I've devoted all my time to this pursuit,
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: I have to believe it's because it's the most important thing.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: Trevor's going to have a deathbed conversion to reality TV or something.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, my word.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm fine with people watching those and getting engrossed in them for their own thing.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe there is something about filling life, not killing time, filling life that way.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think part of this purpose of this episode was to test,
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: do I still believe this for myself?
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: And can I evangelize that?
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you try it too,
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: you might find that this is essential for you too, to a fully lived life.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I do, because again, yeah, I do clearly believe it.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: And again,
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: whether it's true or not,
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: it's a different thing,
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: but I do clearly believe it because of the way I live my life.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so to test it,
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: with this episode,
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: to test why,
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: not just enriching my life,
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: but that it is,
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: are the hours that I've spent reading Proust and hours and hours and hours or Spark
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: or Bruckner, you know, to bring up the ones that I've been bringing up.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't think those are just hours that I acquired like insights and And
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: that I'm then able to turn around and apply to my life.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: They are, as you've said, part of my existence.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's part of how my life was filled.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: And those feelings are true.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: Those imaginative encounters with those people,
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: those absurd,
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes infuriating,
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: disgusting sometimes people when I'm thinking of Proust or Sparta,
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: you know, in particular.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's my biography, you know, because my biography isn't just what I've done.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: It can be reduced that way,
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: you know, to the,
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: thinking of the start of Stoner,
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: where you've got the dates of his birth and his death,
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: and there's the line in between, you know, that's a biography to an extent.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: So is, and he was a professor at blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: Or this is Trevor.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: He started The Mookse and the Gripes Pocket.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: Let's actually incorporate readings.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my life reading.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: He devoted his life to reading.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's still not really my biography.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: It is... You'd have to get inside my head.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: And my head has been,
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: filled with real,
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: experiences with real people and my experiences with fictional people
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: or long gone people or the ancients even.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: And...
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's who I am.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: That is my existence.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's my life.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know how during COVID,
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_02: there was a lot of talk about how lack of community was causing people
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_02: to feel loneliness and a lack of connection.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: Just as you were talking,
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_02: I was thinking about that both with the books themselves,
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_02: but also just the idea of being around People who you don't,
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_02: you almost don't have to explain why books matter.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's just this like acknowledged shared passion.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's something to be said for that to creating life,
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_02: but it's in the same way that like you can talk to somebody on a zoom call and like
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_02: for years, there are colleagues that I've talked to for years.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_02: Only virtually.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like I know them,
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_02: but then all of a sudden you're there with them in person
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_02: and it just changes everything.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's kind of another way that I was thinking about with reading.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_02: It gives you that feeling where you're just connected to this huge community of
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_02: the author, the characters, you and I, friends.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think that is also,
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_02: it's a nebulous idea again,
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_02: but It does create this community and this richness that is another part of like,
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: it's under the surface.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's making your life not just utilitarian or what it could be like on paper or on
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_02: a spreadsheet, but like it adds, I don't know, it's a noisiness and it's a joy.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_02: Again, I don't know that I'm ever quite nailing this,
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: but hopefully people are gathering Little tidbits of all this together and kind
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_02: of making, maybe somebody will say, here's what you're trying to say.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that would be lovely.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: That would be lovely.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that we're on the right track and being right.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_01: You guys are way off.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: You're only saying that reading enriches life a little bit for some people.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: When really, again, I'm trying to get a little bit more.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess if that's the conclusion,
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: because I didn't do a good job arguing, then that's how it goes.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't know.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: I want to be careful about this.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: But reading as religion, you and I offline talked about it a little bit.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_02: I do think that there is some comparison between what...
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: Religion can provide for some people versus what something like reading can provide.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think in the same ways that it's probably impossible for somebody
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_02: to articulate those feelings or the role that certain things play in their lives,
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think maybe that's where some of this gets tricky too.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: It is just a central tenet of who I am, who I've chosen to be, and who I will always be.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe that's all there is to it.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that could be an interesting conversation someday without trying
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: to be insensitive or problematic or anything like that.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, last,
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_01: maybe to bring it to that just a little bit,
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: it was actually my wife who asked me that once, not too long ago.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that in a way, reading and literature
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I don't know.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started to kind of think about it.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized only in retrospect,
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_01: last week,
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: there was just a moment where I was sitting there just feeling I'm happy and glad
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: about my friendship with you and with Mark Haber.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we have a group text.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I just wrote a quick text out.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even remember exactly what it said,
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: but just something like, hey,
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really grateful for bookish friends and genuine friends,
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know, with all of that.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was really feeling that.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized in retrospect...
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think religion can do that for some people,
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: cause this idea of reaching out and of connection.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought,
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I'd call it religion or what,
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_01: but whatever it was,
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_01: some little devotion to literature did result in that gratitude and this friendship
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: that I very much value.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, I think it could be a fun...
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_01: Again, a different thing.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: There are probably people who have written about this in such eloquent ways
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: and we're just missing it.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's got to be some French philosopher who put all of this just the way we want it.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: We'll stumble upon that sometime.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is definitely a rough
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: think-through of these ideas that are very central.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's another reason why they feel kind of tricky.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_02: We always tell people we want this to feel like you're sitting around a dinner table
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_02: or at a bar with us.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you got the real version of that today because this was the unpolished.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is the fully untested version.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_02: But no, I mean, hopefully we got to some points that resonated with people.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's just fun to talk about.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it's one of the things we talk about how messy literature is.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: And that's one of the things we love about it.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so are the feelings around it.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: And a good place to end.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to hear from people on what reading means to you in your life.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_01: And did this inspire you to think about that a little bit?
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_01: Is it something that you'd say is so central and life-giving, life-creating for you?
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: Or...
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or not.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to agree with us or follow us down that pathway.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be happy for pushback as well.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I definitely would like to hear people's experiences with all of this.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, me too.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_01: We will be coming back with more of our normal episodes where we kind of pick
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_01: a topic and explore the books on that topic coming up.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I know over the last six months or so, we've been kind of here, there and everywhere.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: I hope in interesting ways,
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_01: but I admit I am also very partial to classic mookse and gripes content.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: We are not leaving that behind.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_02: No, we're not.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm looking forward to it.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it's fun to take some detours along the way.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's what life's all about, right?
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_01: We have to make the podcast life too now.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Paul, you've got lots of things to do, lots of places to be, so we'll let you go.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_01: And listeners, we'll be back here in a couple of weeks in November.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're almost to our end of year episodes, Paul.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: I can't believe it.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even want to think about it.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: Not quite to that frame of mind where I can easily contemplate the end of 2026.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just not there yet.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_02: But it'll be fun when we get to it.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I hope so.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: I hope so.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Paul.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk to you later.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.
• 1:04:31
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• 1:04:35
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• 1:04:38
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• 1:04:40
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• 1:04:44
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• 1:04:47
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• 1:04:51
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• 1:04:55
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• 1:04:56
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• 1:04:57
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• 1:05:02
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• 1:05:10
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• 1:05:14
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• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_02: May you keep exploring great books until next time.
• 1:05:25
  [music]